Flames were legitimately the dominant club for the inital 50 minutes of the game for the first time since…err…not sure the last time that happened. Leafs reeled things back a bit in the third with a five chance run, but it was after CGY scored their 5th of the night and the evening wasn’t really in doubt anymore. As we we’ve all come to realize this year, running up the chance count when you’re behind in the third is a lot easier than getting ahead in the first place.

Not a lot to add to the general comments, really. I would have liked to see Glencross in the line-up instead of Kostopolous, not that it would have mattered much. The PP finally came through consistently for once, helped by the fact that Jokinen actually looked like the guy who put up results with the man advantage for the Panthers for years. As mentioned by myself and Robert Cleave in the gamethread, Jokinen should stay at the top of the circles a man up and just launch bombs. It’s the one area of his agme that remains above average. Let’s hop the coaching staff catches on.

Well, the SC script didn’t pick up Grabovski as being on the ice because he’d literally jumped over the boards a couple seconds before he scored. Kadri came off for Grabovski, and Versteeg and Armstrong were also heading to the bench. The NHL’s PBP sheet for the game has Grabovski on with MacArthur and Kulemin for the goal, but I only replaced Kadri with Grabovski.

I agree with you regarding Jokinen, Kent. He’s got certain strengths despite the lack of luster in his overall game, but the coaching staff only sporadically deploys them. I thought he was a force 5v5 tonight, as well, though.